Did you make this instructable?

Someone needs to update this thread! There is a gadget called DIY ViDOCK that people and e-mags have reviewed and it works like a charm. Basically it is a plug and play device that plugs into a laptop via an external gadget, that in turn has a cable running over to a tiny motherboard that you plug in ANY PC/tower-type graphics card INTO, plus a power supply! You can extend the game life of an older laptop by a few years with this for about $100 investment. I also found a site where some engineers built one really cheap too.

To really answer the question properly alot more info needs to be provided about your laptop.what processor,ram,and which integrated graphic's chip is your laptop running,and your o.s.There are some work arounds that can improve graphics performance since all onboard graphics are underclocked to improve battery life(a dirty little manufaturer secret) so re-post with a little more info and I might be able to help you out

the graphics card stats on it confuse me a bit, i think it means its taken from the RAM... "Graphics: ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 4250 Graphics with 256MB-1917MB dynamically allocated shared graphics memory"

You are correct about the overclocking,the extra heat made would fry something for sure,The same can be said for upgrading the processor. However there are still a few things you can do or may have already done.Upgrade your graphics drivers to the latest iteration as it will have hardware support for flash 10.1, upgrade flash to 10.1. Keep and eye out for ati performance drivers as supplied by Omega Drivers,yours are not available yet but pop in from time to time. Download and install GameBooster 2,there is a free version available that should give you an incremental jump in performance. Well that's about it from me,anyone else reading these post's feel free to jump in and add to the list.

it is a new laptop, ive had it a month, and it was the best computer by far within my price range, including the graphics card it came with (this one came with a 256mb one, the rest were junk unless i wanted to spend $1500+ and this was about half that)